Listening In, One Species at a Time

An ongoing project here at Elefolio is my work with the fine folks at the Encyclopedia of Life's Learning + Education group and radio host Ari Daniel Shapiro on a series of podcasts, One Species at a Time. Ari hosts the podcasts, which are produced by Atlantic Public Media; I work with the Learning + Education group staff and Ari to provide the Extras you find online.

If you don't know about EOL, it's the brainchild of evolutionary biology and ant man E. O. Wilson (from his 2007 TED talk), to give every species on Earth its own web page, providing easily accessible, authoritative information and images of all living things known to science.

EOL is a consortium of institutions, individual scientists, and ordinary citizens working to document the extraordinary variety and richness of life on our blue planet. It's a project that's highly participatory: average folks, young and old, can contribute based on their level of expertise and ability. Citizen scientists can work to curate a species page, create an online collection or field guide, upload images or video to the EOL Group Flickr Pool, and visit the podcast pages for extras and curriculum links for the classroom. You can also join other citizen scientists on the annual BioBlitz species inventory. Start exploring all EOL has to offer by listening to some of my favorite podcasts from the past (the giant squid and corpse flower) or with this week's entry on killer whales.

Because it's enormous in scope and constantly evolving, it's difficult to do justice to EOL in a blog post. There's always something new. I recommend you dive in via The Learning + Education group's home page. You can also subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes, follow EOL on Facebook, or subscribe to the YouTube channel.